Food & Water Watch in Pittsburgh TOMORROW

Food & Water Watch, a DC-based non-profit advocacy group will be in Braddock and Pittsburgh tomorrow, August 3, raising awareness about the Farm Bill working its way through congress with the goal of getting it revised to make it fairer to small farmers.

If you're interested in this cause, check out this flyer which was sent along by one of their organizers and get educated!

(Also, don't pass up the opportunity to enjoy The Quiet Storm's home fries!)

Buy Fresh Buy Local Farm Tour: Pittsburgh area farm tour this Saturday!

Attention Pittsburgh!

This Saturday, pack up a car with hungry people and go exploring! On Saturday, July 24 2010 between 10 AM and 6 PM, Western Pennsylvania farmers will be opening their doors to visitors who are interested in learning more about some of the best food produced in this area. Whether you're looking for some local cheeses, want to see pastures of grass-fed beef, see how some of the world's best lamb is raised in our backyard, or just bike to an urban farm and nursey in the city, there should be something for everyone. A $10 admission per car is payable to the first farm you visit, which gives you access to every other farm on the tour. All proceeds go to support The Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA).

Click here for a list and map of all participating farms.

Tam and I will be starting at Kretchmann Farm (who have been filling our CSA crates for the last three years) and taking it from there!

For more information contact PASA at (412) 697-0411.

International Adventures in Junk Food, Vol. 1: Argentina

I would like to introduce a new series to the blog which I am calling "International Adventures in Junk Food." In these posts, I'll chronicle unique junk foods discovered and enjoyed on various travels. The featured item might be sweet, it might be salty, but it has to be full of processed crap and chemicals, and it has to be delicious.

Volume 1: Argentina
Megatube 3D's Mega Queso

We spent three weeks in Argentina before discovering Megatube 3D's. We were at Iguazu Falls, were totally drenched with rain and spray from our visit to the falls, and searching for something to tide us over before dinner. Without car and wanting to stay dry, our options were limited to the few different bags of processed fried snack foods available from the lobby of our hotel. In a moment of divine intervention, we decided on Megatube 3D's.


I'm not sure if it was the superfluous apostrophe, the specified three dimensional quality of the tubes (who wants a 2D tube? That would just be a rectangle!), or the promise of mega queso flavour, but we grabbed a large bag, and a large bottle of Quilmes beer, and took them to the covered porch outside our room to eat.

The Megatube 3D's were a revelation! I'd describe them as a cross between Bugles, and Nacho Cheese Doritos. They were shaped like and had the surface texture of Bugles, were made of a deep-fried cornlike substance, and slathered in Doritos Nacho Cheese flavour powder. Since they were packaged by PepsiCo (bonus points for the omipresence of a multinational corporation), I think that the nacho cheese flavour was an exact replica of North American Nacho Cheese Doritos. So basically, Megatube 3D's were a new vehicle for that greasy orange powder that covers our fingers after eating Doritos.

They were perfect with a cold beer, and we probably wolfed down another 5 bags in our last week in Argentina. Oh! Megatube 3D-apostrophe-s, we miss you!

Casse-Croûte Chez Tipit, Rivière-Beaudette, QC

Last year, I reviewed one of Montreal's best (and certainly its most acclaimed), poutine joint. However, one secret to traveling in Québec is that almost any rural road side diner, snack bar, or fry shack is going to serve up poutine better than what you can get in Montreal. No, Anthony Bourdain won't have eaten there, and it won't be featured in your Frommer's travel guide, but every small town has one or two dives, and I've yet to have anything but excellent poutine in any of them.

Tam and I were recently in my hometown to attend a belated wedding reception that my parents were graciously hosting for us newlyweds. After a fantastic weekend catching up with family and friends that we hadn't seen in ages, it was time to pack up the car and make the nearly 1000 km drive back to Pittsburgh.

We didn't make it far. After only an hour, we had exited Highway 20 and were looking to gas up. However, we were immediately confronted with two quintissentially Québécois institutions across the road from one another. Québécois institutions which undoubtedly draw more tourists then all others combined: a strip club, and a snack bar. While Club Frontière promised a selection of exotic danseuses to go with their (presumably) reasonably priced motel rooms, the lure of hot fries, gravy, and cheese curds from Chez Tipit proved stronger.


It was lunchtime, and so we queued up behind what felt like every local blue collar worker who were getting their steamés, toastés, poutine italiennes, and so on. We kept it simple and shared a traditional poutine between the two of us.

It didn't disappoint, easily surpassing the quality of most offerings downstream in Montreal. The fries were hot, crisp, and greasy, the cheese so fresh it squeaked (always a good sign), and the gravy was peppery and smooth.


It didn't take long for us to polish it off, with Tam, true to her British roots, dousing her half with splashes of vinegar between bites.


With enough carbs and fat to sustain us, we only needed a coffee break to get us the rest of the way back to Pittsburgh. We wondered whether the hardworking women across the way at Club Frontière similarly rely on a Chez Tipit poutine to fuel their long days?

Casse-Croûte Chez Tipit is located at 620 Rue Principale in Rivière-Beaudette, Quebec. It's just off the highway at the last/first exit in Québec when driving between Toronto and Montreal and is definitely better than the Wendy's and Timmy Ho's which line the 401 across the border in Ontario. In a rush? Call 450-269-2996 and ask for your order to go (pour aller), so you can get back on the road. Or back to the show across the street.

Mulberry season in Pittsburgh

In my walk to work over the last few weeks, I've been monitoring the status of my favorite Mulberry trees along my route. I'm happy to report that with the hot summer weather in the last few days, Pittsburgh's mulberry trees are now bursting with ripe fruit. I've added another public tree to the database on the excellent Neighborhood Fruit site, which I talked about last year as a resource for people to find and share fruit in their communities to prevent waste.

If any locals like these bright purple berries, I encourage you to go out to one of these public trees with a bucket and pick until your arms get sore. The fruit won't be around long!

Rex, La Barra, Uruguay

After a few days of fine dining in Uruguay, including our sublime lunch at El Garzon as well as excellent whole grilled fish on the beach at La Huella in José Ignacio where we were staying, we decided that our final dinner in the country would be a meal of chivitos, a regional steak-based sandwich. A quintessentially Uruguayan dish, the chivito is the national riff on the universal idea of packing carbs and protein into a meal that fits in your hand.

On the recommendation of our hotel staff, we made the short drive from José Ignacio to La Barra to go to Rex, a diner whose marquee promised us "The Best Chivitos in Town." Keeping things simple, we both ordered the Chivito Completo, which somehow crams five different forms of protein into a single dish. When our plates arrived, we were able to enjoy the architectural assembly of our sandwiches.


Each starts with a solid base of churrasco, a thin cut of steak grilled until juicy and tender, before being layered with two forms of pork (both pancetta and ham, in case omitting one or the other would be negligent). A generous layer of melted provolone binds the three meats together, and a fried egg tops them off. A few slices of lettuce and tomato, a dollop of mayo, and a sesame seed bun round out Rex's version of this national dish.

We washed our meal down with a large frosty bottle of Patricia, a decent Uruguayan lager which complemented our salty meal nicely. Were they the best chivitos in town? Well, they were the only ones we tried, and judging by our empty plates and happy faces, they earned our stamp of approval.



Rex is located on the main drag of Ruta 10 at km 161 in La Barra, Uruguay. You can call them at 00598-42-771504 or visit their website for more information.

Locals, how did we do? Is there a better chivito in the area? Where do you go for the best chivito in Uruguay?

Hungry Canuck welcomed to 2008, joins Twitter

I have a few food-related side projects in the works right now, and thought that the time was right for me to join Twitter so that I can broadcast news about all of them in one place, when blog postings might not always be appropriate.

So, for those using the service, you can now follow me @hungrycanuck. I'll be tweeting when a new blog entry is posted, as well as random food-related musings, or when my other projects get off the ground.

El Garzon, Garzón, Uruguay

December 2009 and January 2010 were a blur. Our budding family experienced two PhD defenses, a wedding, and a number of out-of-town family and friends visiting to celebrate such auspicious occasions. By the time February rolled around, Tam and I were ready to flee the cold snowy weather in Pittsburgh and our recently hectic lives, and so we did, choosing to honeymoon in South America.

After a 24-hour blur of in-flight movies, airports, security checkpoints, and lost luggage, we made it from the gray, gridlocked 376 Parkway in Pittsburgh to the clear two-lane Ruta 10, which weaves its way along the sunny South Atlantic Uruguayan coast, our home for four days of rejuvenation and relaxation before our itinerary took us to Argentina for the next three weeks. After a few blissful days on the beach, we decided to take an our rental car inland to see what the rest of the country was like. Without a map or a destination in mind we pointed our car away from the ocean, found a dirt road, and started driving. Under a big sunny sky, we passed countless cattle grazing on gentle green hillsides. Small wooded glens dotted the landscape, but for the most part, we were driving through empty green fields, with no settlements in sight.

At one point, we saw a sign indicating the direction of Garzón. Recognizing the town name from some pre-trip research that I had done on food options near where we were staying, we decided to go there, more out of a need for a specific destination to avoid getting lost than to seek out a meal. By the time we made it to Garzón, we were sweaty, dusty, and starting to get hungry. We weaved our way through the few streets that make up this tiny community, marveling at how far we'd traveled in just a few days, before deciding to check out El Garzon, probably the only restaurant in the country that has been written up in the Wall Street Journal.

We opted for the sunny poolside courtyard instead of the cool, antique-furnished interior, and we quite literally had the entire restaurant and service staff (one chef and one waiter) to ourselves. We were seated under the shade of a massive palm tree, whose trunk protruded from an opening in the table. Ordering modestly out of the need to conserve money for the rest of our month traveling, we decided to split two (astronomically priced) courses between us.

The kitchen brought us a light salad instead of an amuse bouche. It was composed of mandolined slices of raw baby zucchini, Parmesan scrapings, chopped, toasted almonds, a dusting of mint chiffonade and lime zest, black pepper, olive oil, and a splash of lemon juice. The contrast of bold flavours and textures as well as the freshness of the ingredients let us know that we were in for a special meal.

Our next course, a cold almond soup with fresh figs, floored us. I know I can go overboard with my prose in some of these reviews, but let me state this clearly: this dish was the single best food item that either of us has ever eaten.


As best as we could determine, the base of this soup was made of pureed almonds cut with stock, a splash of cream, and some acid (white balsamic vinegar, perhaps?). It was topped with a raw, quartered, exceedingly-ripe fig, some coarsely-ground black pepper, and a few drops of pungent olive oil. While seemingly simple, so many clean flavours were displayed by this plate. The acidity and saltiness of the broth hit us up front, followed by the sweetness of the figs and vinegar, and then nutty and grassy hints from the almonds and olive oil respectively. Finally, aromas of cream and pepper are left lingering on the tongue until the next spoonful starts the cycle once again. Really, truly, a masterpiece of a dish.

Knowing that Uruguay is one of the few places in the world to claim to have better beef than Argentina, we decided to get our first steak on the continent and split an order of bife de lomo (filet mignon) served with Patagonian potatoes. While the steak was sizzling over the wood-burning fire in the restaurant kitchen, we saw our chef stroll out to the poolside herb garden, pick a few sprigs, and return inside. A few minutes later, out came our steak, encrusted with the fresh herbs, garlic, and pitted black olives, cut in half and served with a few endive leaves on individual beds of potato.


The potatoes, sliced paper thin and artistically arranged, were fried until crisp in fat rich with the floral, complex aromas of the Uruguayan butter that we were starting to love. Strategically lining the plate, the potatoes soaked up the juices from the beef, giving them another level of richness. And what can I say about the steak? It was a fantastic piece of beef, no doubt expertly raised and butchered down the road by a culture that values meat, and perfectly cooked to the rare side of medium rare. Some purists would probably be shocked that the flavours of the meat were complemented with brash olives, garlic and herbs, but eating this meal under the South American summer sun, sipping a beautiful Uruguayan red wine (again, with a strong buttery bouquet) it seemed like the only possible way it could have been prepared.

Tam was exploring inside while our cafes (con leche) were being prepared. She saw milk slowly being hand-whisked until frothy over a gas flame before the addition of shots of espresso. Served in fine china, we enjoyed world-class coffee after a world class meal. In a town with just a few hundred inhabitants in a remote part of a remote country that we never really planned on visiting. This is a meal that we'll remember for a long, long time.


Restaurante El Garzón is located just off the town square in Garzón, Uruguay. Check out their website to plan a stay at the hotel or a visit for a meal. It is operated by Francis Mallmann, one of South America's most well known celebrity chefs, so expect to pay handsomely for your experience. Francis himself was reading a paper with a local dog outside the restaurant when we arrived. We can only hope that he oversaw the preparation of our meal. You can also enjoy some of his recipes, including the delicious zucchini salad that we ate, on youtube.

Patty King, Toronto, ON

Seventh grade was a big year. Growing up in Montreal, seventh grade meant high school, and for a pre-pubescent thirteen year old, high school meant being suddenly thrown into the same hallway with much larger, older, bearded seventeen and eighteen year olds, which was more than a little terrifying. In case thirteen isn’t an awkward enough age, my high school’s dress code mandated that we wear what seemed like an impossibly embarrassing school uniform. So I was undersized, felt like a dork in my uniform, and now had to function in an atmosphere where my female classmates had traded in their tie-dye t-shirts from sixth grade to experiment with cigarettes and push the envelope on the “pleated kilts must not be shorter than one inch above the knees” rule. Yes, in Montreal, there was a big difference between sixth and seventh grades.

Another difference between schools, which will eventually lead to the point of this entry, was the cafeteria. No longer limited to the brown bag or lunch box our parents packed for us in elementary school, now, the cafeteria served food. I can’t honestly remember a single meal they served for lunch (probably because I still brought in a packed lunch every day – thanks Mom!), but for a guy who was still many years away from getting the courage to ask out a girl, recess in the cafeteria was probably the most exciting thing about seventh grade. I think we had two options at recess (at least, I can only remember two): gooey, half-cooked (if you chose carefully), hot-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies and Jamaican patties. We only had fifteen minutes, but that was just enough time to race to the cafeteria, pick up either a stack of cookies and a cup of milk in those individual cardboard cartons or a Jamaican patty and eat it before our next class. I’m not sure how the Jamaican patty became a ubiquitous lunchroom staple in the WASPiest neighbourhood of Montreal, but their flaky crusts and spicy meat fillings provided a nice alternative or supplement to the melt-in-your-mouth cookies.

(And while I’m in the process of churning out 1000 words on transitioning to adulthood and Jamaican patties, if the Royal West Academy cafeteria still makes chocolate chip cookies and I could get my hands on a hot batch of them, I think I could produce the War and Peace of food blogging.)

For the uninitiated, Jamaican patties are a Caribbean version of the classic meat-filled-dough foodstuff. Ravioli, empanadas, Jamaican patties… all riffs on the same theme. Jamaican patties really only consist of two components, both of which need to be good to make a good patty: crust and filling. Patty crusts are flaky like a pie crust, owing to a high fat content, but thinner and lighter. If done properly, there should be just the slightest crispiest exterior covering pillowy, steamy dough. The crust is golden yellow due to the addition of turmeric to the dough. Patties are generally filled with ground meat, curry blends, and hot peppers. I grew up on beef patties, but chicken and vegetable patties are relatively common too.

I’m not sure why I bothered with such a long preamble to get to a post about Jamaican patties. Did they represent some newfound freedom that high school brought about? Not really, but they were really, really good and since the early ‘90s, the Jamaican patty has been a staple snack or meal for me. There were two patty shops only blocks away from my house throughout high school, and my father often picked up a bag of them for lunches on weekends or for sustenance during long car trips. In college, when I moved into my first apartments with my buddies, frozen Jamaican patties (Lloydies: inferior in every way to a fresh bakery patty but much more convenient after a night at a bar or studying in the library) were always in our freezer. So while moving to Pittsburgh for graduate school was a huge step for me academically, personally, for my maturity, and so on, I was also unknowingly leaving behind a steady stream of quality Jamaican patties. The only specimens I’ve been able to track down here are barely worth mentioning: frozen for so long in a grocery store freezer that the crust ends up brittle and crumbling and filled with a dry, pasty gray meat. Disappointing to say the least, and the end of the 12-year Patty Era in my life.

So when one of my high school friends moved to Toronto last year and gave me an excuse to drive up there periodically, the one place I asked him to take me on my first visit was his neighbourhood patty shop. And he obliged. The Patty King, in Toronto’s Kensington market, looks like dozens of similar bakeries across Toronto or Montreal which are run and frequented by expatriate Caribbeans and a generation of young Canadians who grew up on patties in our high school cafeterias.


The Patty King’s patties are better than most, and on each of my last three visits to the city, I’ve crossed the border back to the US with a dozen spicy beef patties in the trunk of my car. A new Patty Era is born! We try to make them last, but Tam and I usually end up finishing them off within a week or so. It’s not ideal, but zapping a frozen Patty King patty in the microwave and then baking it for a few minutes in our amazing new toaster oven beats anything that I can find in Pittsburgh by far.


The Patty King also serves up an array of Caribbean dishes and cakes: ox tail, curried goat, ackee, doubles, and so on, but I usually stick with the patties that I grew up on. One of my comfort foods.

Know a good place to get patties in Pittsburgh? I’d love to hear it!

Patty King is located at 187 Baldwin Street in Toronto's Kensington Market neighbourhood. Call (416) 977-3191 for more information.

Udipi Cafe, Monroeville, PA

At the end of the 1970s, George Romero put the Pittsburgh suburb of Monroeville, PA on the map by filming his Dawn of the Dead zombie classic at the local shopping mall. Around the same time, the opening of the Sri Venkateswara temple one mile from the mall was also establishing the area as one of the country's first hubs of Hindu and Indian culture. Since the 1970s, a handful of businesses have opened in the vicinity of the temple to provide services for worshipers, including, most deliciously, Udipi Cafe: an affordable diner-style restaurant specializing in South Indian vegetarian cuisine. Tam and her family have been frequenting Udipi for years, and we make regular visits for meals.

On one recent weekend afternoon, Tam dragged me out of my thesis-writing cave to enjoy lunch there with a couple of friends. I like to start my Udipi meals with a sip of salty lassi, a drink consisting of yogurt and milk laced with salt and whole toasted cumin seeds. Can you tell that I hadn't seen natural light in days?


We almost always start our meal with the dahi vada, an appetizer consisting of deep fried lentil doughnuts which are then soaked in water, chilled, and topped with yogurt, tamarind chutney, spices, and fresh coriander. This cool refreshing starter goes particularly well with a fiery bowl of Udipi's rasam.


Tam always orders her favorite, the chana bhatura (chick peas with fried bread). The chick pea curry comes served with raw onion and a piece of dough fried in oil until it blisters and puffs up with steam to an intimidatingly large size, like a deformed beach ball. It is always rushed piping hot from the kitchen to the table in its impressive inflated state.


Piercing the bhatura with a fork deflates the bread balloon which generally gets torn apart by hand and used to scoop up mouthfuls of curry and onion.


Udipi's dosas are excellent. They are large and expertly prepared: thinly spread like a crepe on a cooking surface until crispy on one side while being just thick enough (a few millimeters) that the other surface stays slightly soft. They are served wrapped or folded over a choice of curries and fillings, and accompanied with small bowls of spicy sambar and cool coconut chutney for dipping. The masala dosa filled with potato curry is particularly good.


Udipi is a no-frills Indian restaurant in the suburbs, but it probably serves the best Indian food in the Pittsburgh area. It's definitely worth a special trip, but you might want to keep your eyes on the Hindu calendar because on holidays, Udipi can be overflowing with worshipers enjoying a post-temple meal.

Udipi Cafe is located at 4141 Old William Penn Highway in Monroeville, PA. Call (412) 373-5581 for more information.

Duff's Famous Wings, Buffalo, NY

Is there something about eating food in the city after which it was named which makes it taste better? I've never had a hamburger in Hamburg, or a cheesesteak in Philly, but since moving to the US, I've had several opportunities to enjoy Buffalo wings on their home turf in Buffalo, NY. I don't know if they are actually the best wings I've tasted, but something about digging into a plate of them in northwest New York makes them seem impossible to beat.

Buffalo is located along the most direct route between my current residence in Pittsburgh and both Toronto and Montreal, and on one road trip, a quick internet cellphone search pointed our group toward Duff's Famous Wings, conveniently located only five minutes from I-90. Craving an alternative to the McDonalds-infested rest stops along the New York State Thruway, we decided a short detour was in order.

From the outside, Duff's seems to meet the requirements one would expect from a solid wing establishment. Neon lights? Check. Giant marquee advertising both how hot their wings are and the upcoming football game? Check and check. Inside there are more promising signs: televisions everywhere (including in the men's room), a bubble hockey table, and very large patrons wedged into cushy leather booths.


On all of my visits, ordering has been simple: wings and beer, and plenty of both. The wings come exactly how I like them. Wing flats and drumettes are deep-fried until crispy on the outside while staying juicy and tender on the inside. Then, from the fryer, they get tossed in lots and lots of sauce. Look at them glisten!


Before elaborating, let me digress by listing my six rules for a great order of buffalo wings. Duff's adheres to these rules pretty closely.

Rule #1. Wings shouldn't be obtained from undersized birds. I don't want wing flats that are so small that I need tweezers to pick out the meat from between the two bones. I want to be able to tear off most of it with my first bite so that I can wedge a finger in there to pry the rest of the meat loose.

Rule #2. Wings shouldn't be obtained from oversize birds. On the other hand, I don't want anything that looks like it came from a turkey. There should be a couple good mouthfuls of meat on a drumette, and that's it. Anything bigger, and I'm going to have too much meat in the interior that's under-seasoned and not in contact with any sauce.

Rule #3. The wings shouldn't be overcooked. I don't want wings that are dry, tough, or leathery. Too long in the deep fryer or too long sitting under a heat lamp and the wings are ruined.

Rule #4. Wings should be accompanied by fresh, crisp, chilled celery and blue cheese dressing. Buffalo wings are warm, the celery shouldn't be too! And is there anything less refreshing than limp celery? The creamy blue cheese dressing is great not only for dipping the celery, but for offsetting the heat with an occasional dip of a wing.

Rule #5. Sauce quality: I want them spicy, and I want some decent acid content. I don't want teriyaki wings, I don't want honey-glazed wings, I don't anything mesquite or dry-rubbed. Just emulsify a vinegary cayenne pepper-based sauce with some fat and go nuts. Keep it simple!

Rule #6. Sauce quantity: the sauce should be plentiful. I can't stress this last point enough. I hate it when an order of Buffalo wings comes with just a few tablespoons of sauce dripped over it. I want every square inch of wing surface area drenched in sauce. I want enough sauce on the bottom of the serving plate to swish my wing in both before and after taking that first bite. I want enough sauce to dip my celery in too. And if the sauce is good, I'm likely going to want to dip my fingers into it and lick them clean. I once had a roommate who used to keep the leftover liquid at the bottom of the bucket from our local wing take-out joint and incorporate it into his homemade pasta sauce. While I don't go that far, I do appreciate the sentiment and similarly treat a good sauce like the valuable commodity that it is.

So, how do Duff's Famous Wings fare? Perfectly sized and perfectly cooked, positively drowned in a quality sauce and accompanied by cool, crunchy celery and creamy blue cheese dressing. 6/6! I've had the medium, the medium-hot, and hot wings. I'd recommend the medium wings for people who like a bit of heat but have relatively sensitive palates. I didn't notice much difference between medium-hot and hot wings. Both caused a healthy amount of mouth and lip tingling without bordering on being unpleasant (for me), but I have a pretty high heat threshold. Some of my dining companions have struggled with anything hotter than medium. The folks over at the Hot Sauce Blog have tested the Armageddon Wings and their advertised 850,000 Scoville Heat Units, but I haven't been that brave yet. Maybe next time?

Duff's draft selection is relatively uninteresting, but I don't think you can go wrong with pitcher of Sam's Adam Boston Lager. Straightforward American beer for a straightforward American food in a straightforward American city. Since that first visit, a drive to or from Toronto or Montreal isn't complete without a quick pit stop in Buffalo.


Duff's is located at 3090 Orchard Park Road in Buffalo, NY. It's a 5 minute detour from I-90 and worth the side trip. Call (716) 674-7212 for more information.

One year and counting!

This weekend marks the one year anniversary of Hungry Canuck! I wanted to write a quick post to thank my few regular readers for their support, suggestions, and comments which have helped me build this site up to its current nearly respectable status.

In one year I managed to review establishments in five states, four countries, and on three continents (counting a day trip to the Asian side of Turkey). Personal highlights include my Southern road trip through Tennessee and transcendent Grilled Cheese in London. I seem to be attracting about 20 readers a day (hi guys!) except the two times that I have been tastespotted when about ten times that amount swarm to the site. My post about Boustan in Montreal gets the most hits which is great, since it's one that I am happiest with. I'm glad to be another resource for stoned college kids at Concordia and McGill when they get their midnight cravings

I have optimistic plans for the next year, including some extensive traveling and eating in new parts of the world. Stay tuned for details! It's also likely that in a year's time Tam and I will be living away from Pittsburgh, and there must be a dozen restaurants in the city that I want to write about before we hit the road. I'll try to get to a few of them each month in the new year.

In honour of the past year, here's one favourite picture that didn't make it into a full post: the slightly less than appetizing Skyline Chili, a Cincinnati institution. A mountain of fluorescent orange cheese, overcooked pasta, and seasoned ground beef. Somehow, I failed to appreciate its culinary value.

Pittsburgh Rib Fest, Pittsburgh, PA

July 2010 update: While I haven't seen official word from the Steelers or Heinz Field, from what I can tell the 2010 festival will be held over Labor Day weekend, from September 2 - 6. The festival will kick off that Thursday evening (September 2) as the Steelers host the Carolina Panthers in the final preseason game.

August 2010 update: The Steelers have finally confirmed what I reported here weeks ago. The 2010 Rib Fest will indeed take place over Labor Day Weekend. See their press release for the full schedule of musical acts and activities. As usual, we'll be there getting our fingers messy with sauce!

As fall edges into winter here in Pittsburgh, I've been reminiscing about one of my favourite annual traditions in this city, the Pittsburgh Rib Fest.

At the end of every summer, barbecue teams descend on Heinz Field for a long weekend of outdoor grilling and competition. While awards are handed out at the end of the weekend for the best ribs, best sauce, and so on, the festival is moreover an opportunity for barbecue lovers to wander the area and sample some great ribs from around the country. Menus vary from vendor to vendor, with the one constant being pork ribs and sides like slaw and baked beans (although you should ask before you order since it seemed like most beans came from a can). Many also sell barbecue chicken and pulled pork, while brisket, beef ribs, and corn bread can be found too. Aside from the dozen or so barbecue joints, kiosks also sell Pennsylvania country fair staples like lemonade, funnel cake, and frozen custard.

But as regular readers of this blog know, I get most excited by barbecue. So every year, I make the trek down to Heinz Field and get 3-bone rib samplers (for $5-6 each) from as many different vendors as it takes to fill me up. If you're not craving a particular regional style of pork, there are many other ways to help you decide which ribs to eat. You can go with the stand with the shortest lines, the one that has the most trophies or award banners, order from the vendor with the catchiest slogan, or perhaps support the stand where the grillmaster is also pulling double duty as MC. It's hard to go wrong.

This year Tam and I started with Bad Wolf Barbecue ("The K.C. Legend", surprisingly based out of Toronto) which combined an impressive array of award banners with some kitchy statuary.


The Bad Wolf ribs were very good without being mindblowing. I'll give them points for the sweet sauce which made for both sticky fingers and a nicely caramelized, slightly charred crust on each rib. The ribs were also quite juicy, not having been cooked to the point of falling off the bone, and maintained a lot of richness from the fat which hadn't fully rendered out of the meat. Are they beautiful, or what?


We thoroughly enjoyed every bite.


Not yet full, we wandered the length of the festival before deciding that our second stop should be at Ron's Ribs ("The King of Ribs"), based out of Mansfield, OH. A huge factor in our decision was this larger-than-life size poster of the King of Ribs himself.


There's a lot to be said for a man who can proudly don a crown on top of his chef's hat, epaulettes, a golden sash (literally proclaiming him the "King of Ribs and Sauce"), five medals (presumably for excellence in ribs and/or sauce), and white gloves (not very practical for a barbecue grillmaster), without a hint of irony. And is that a scepter he's wielding?

While waiting in line, we noticed that the King himself was manning the grill, thankfully having traded in his scepter for a pair of tongs and his crown for a King of Ribs ball cap. After purchasing our ribs, we settled down on the curb and pulled them apart with our hands. These were exactly my style. Achingly tender, lean, and with a perfect balance of sauce to smoky pork. Long live the king!

The Pittsburgh Rib Fest takes place outside Heinz Field and generally runs over the long weekend which contains the first Pittsburgh Panthers home football game in late August or early September. Check back on this page in the summer of 2010 for an update on the upcoming festival's exact schedule.

Similar events periodically take place across the country. The Kansas City Barbeque Society keeps an excellent searchable list of events they sponsor on their website.

Round Corner Cantina, Pittsburgh, PA

Tam and I were meeting a friend at a local bar for a drink in September when he made a passing comment about a new, excellent Mexican restaurant that had only been serving food for two weeks. Regular readers of this space may remember that I've often bemoaned the lack of quality Mexican food in Pittsburgh, so this news excited us tremendously. It took us about ten minutes to settle our tab before we raced down to Lawrenceville to check it out for ourselves.

The Round Corner Hotel had been a Pittsburgh dive for as long as anyone I know here remembered, until a trio of Lawrenceville residents bought out the previous owner and transformed it into the Round Corner Cantina, a bar which also happens to now serve the best, high quality, straightforward Mexican street food in the city. We enjoyed our first meal there so much that we went back with friends the next week. Then popped in for a birthday dinner the week after that. And met another set of friends there last week. This place has quickly become our go-to spot for a low-key, fantastic meal.

We've tasted most of the menu by now, and our favorite item is the escabeche, fresh vegetables lightly pickled with vinegar, cilantro, and a hint of fresh hot pepper, which we've ordered on each visit. It comes in a mason jar with the lid popped off. A few thin wooden skewers are provided for diners to spear their veggies. On our first visit in late summer, the escabeche featured local cauliflower and snap peas, but as we move into fall, the contents are shifting towards carrots, pearl onions, and baby turnips. The crunchy veggies in the jars offer a glimpse at what our local farmers are currently harvesting in Western Pennsylvania.

Another of our favorites is the queso fundido con chorizo, which is divine in its simplicity and is directly inspired by similar dishes in taquerias across Mexico. The Cantina's version consists of a tiny cast iron pan filled with chihuahua cheese and finely diced chorizo, broiled until completed melted and bubbly in the middle, and slightly crispy around the edges. A basket of fresh, warm tortilla chips is provided to help scoop up each bite. This dish is laden with grease from the melted cheese and salty chorizo, but the small serving size keeps it from weighing the diner down.

Also, its hard to go wrong with the tacos. Served two to a plate in very lightly grilled corn tortillas, filled with the protein of your choice (with seitan available for vegetarians). I tend to prefer the carnitas, topped with queso fresco, thinly sliced radishes, diced onions, cilantro, and a wedge of lime. The pork doesn't have the salty crispiness of my favorite carnitas, but they are nonetheless sublime in their stewed smokiness.

The small menu will satisfy your inner carnivore with the carnitas or chicharrones, while vegetarians can enjoy interesting options ranging from a cactus salad and guacamole to elote.

The extensive drink list features over a dozen types of tequila and mezcal, inspired cocktails, and our favorites, the micheladas (we prefer the Mexican over the Spanish). The Mexican michelada consists of a mason jar of Mexican lager topped with a sprig of cilantro, a pinch of salt, a spear of hot pepper, and a splash of lime.

It didn't take long for word to get out, and the Round Corner Cantina has quickly emerged as a popular spot for drinks and bites among Pittsburgh's 20 and 30 something crowd. Early problems with understaffing seemed to have been sorted out on our last visit.

In the warm weather, the fenced in, grassy back yard takes on the feel of a mellow house party, with the wait staff shuttling out drinks and food from inside to the picnic tables and and benches filling the space.

Our same friend recently whispered a new rumour that the menu might be getting touched up for the winter. I know we'll keep checking it out, and suggest that anyone who's ever bemoaned the lack of good Mexican food in this city does the same. The drought is over!

The Round Corner Cantina is located in the beautiful Round Corner Hotel building at 3720 Butler Street in Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighbourhood. You can check out their public Facebook page or call 412-904-2279 for more information. As a bar, entry is restricted to those 21 and over.

I apologize for the low quality of the pictures. The dim lighting and rich interior colours in the Cantina make for great atmosphere but difficult photography without a tripod.

Kanlıca Yogurt, Kanlıca, Turkey

One of our more memorable days in Turkey was spent taking a ferry from the Eminönü docks in Istanbul along the Bosphorus to Anadolu Kavağı, on the mouth of the Black Sea. With the warm sun on our faces, any real life stresses rapidly sublimated in the strong sea breeze.


While the ferry made stops at several suburbs and towns along its route, a lone food vendor made his rounds, first selling simit, a dense sesame-encrusted, bagel-shaped bread, and then ubiquitous glasses of steaming black Turkish tea. As Tam and I were headed for the end of the line, we stayed in our seats, munching and sipping our purchases.

When the ferry pulled into the Kanlıca dock, we could tell from our perch on the rear deck that the town was special. Two boys were swimming in the water outside a cafe advertising yoğurdu. Even though I barely speak Turkish, yoğurdu sounded like it had to be delicious.


As the ferry pulled back out into the strait, the vendor started selling small tubs of yoğurdu (which unsurprisingly turned out to be yogurt) from a crate which had been freshly delivered on board. For two turkish liras (about $1.40 USD), the vendor popped off the lid and heaped two giant teaspoons of powdered sugar onto the surface of the yogurt.


The yogurt was thick, almost solid. Legend has it, it used to be sold in blocks which were cut by knife. The fermented whole milk (a blend of cow and sheep milk) was tangy and creamy, topped with a thick skin of milk solids. We blended the yogurt and sugar together, and savored every spoonful, each bite balancing the intense sourness from the lactic acid with the added sweetness. It was a fantastically refreshing summer snack.

Our ferry voyage ended at Anadolu Kavağı, where we explored some ruins on a cliff overlooking the Black Sea before hopping on a meandering bus back toward Istanbul. The bus route followed the Asian shore, through small coastal towns and past markets. Hungry, we decided to get off the bus when it passed through Kanlıca, and quenched our hunger with pide (perhaps the original "football pizza"?) and another yogurt from a small shop behind the town square. We took it to the waterfront and ate it on a park bench, savoring every perfect spoonful.


It's easy to make a weak, although still delicious approximation of this treat using widely available Greek-style yogurt, like Fage. Unfortunately, in North America, I've never tasted a yogurt as good as what they sell in Kanlıca.

Kanlıca-style yogurt
1 cup chilled thick, greek yogurt
2 heaping teaspoons of powdered sugar

Blend. Eat it in the sunshine, preferably somewhere where you can feel a sea breeze.

The town of Kanlıca is located 20 km north of Istanbul, on the Bosphorus' Asian shore. There are a handful of yogurt vendors around the small town selling tubs of creamy yogurt which you can order with sugar or without. For a heartier meal, the Kanlıca kebab ve Yemek salonu on Halide Edip Adivar Caddesi serves delicious pide from a brick oven and provided complimentary salad and friendly conversation with our meal.

Fürreyya Galata Balıkcısı, İstanbul, Turkey

After attending a wedding in Scotland, Tamar and I took off for six days in Turkey for some much needed rest and relaxation. Our base was in İstanbul, where we took the time to see the city while tasting our way across its many neighbourhoods.

One evening, we took a walk from our hotel up towards the Galata Tower for an evening in Beyoğlu, as vibrant an urban area as I've ever seen. Before my trip, I had been regularly following the excellent Istanbul Eats blog, and after reading their review, we wanted to check out Fürreyya Balıkcısı (Fürreyya Fish House), which lies in the shadow of the tower. Upon our arrival, we sat at one of the tiny restaurant's two tables, underneath their red and white striped awning.


We were enthusiastically waited upon by Necati, a local university student who was eager to practice his English while explaining the menu. We opted for the kalamar (calamari) and balık dürüm, a fish wrap. The food preparation was done slowly and with care. The amazingly fresh seafood was cut and fried to order in the open kitchen with each ingredient lovingly transformed from its original state to an individual component on the final plate. While we waited, Necati engaged with us in conversation, exchanging anecdotes about our respective hometowns while he provided us with recommendations on what to do with our time in the city.

Our kalamar arrived first, and while unspectacular to look at, it was without a doubt the best that either of us had ever tasted.

Each ring was light and crispy, without even a hint of the chewiness or fishiness that often plagues frozen North American versions of this dish. The plate was garnished with a pair of cold sauces, one creamy yogurt-based sauce and a simple tomato sauce which provided contrasts in both temperature and flavour.

Next to arrive was our wrap. It consisted of fried strips of incredibly fresh fish, perfectly caramelized onions, and greens, wrapped up in a lavaş, a thin tortilla-like wrap, which was lightly toasted until it formed a slightly crisp shell. Each component in this wrap was expertly executed, and it was one of our food highlights of our trip.


Necati offered us tea, even though it wasn't on their menu,. When we accepted, he cheerfully went to the shop next door to procure us two glasses, without charge. Over our tea, we exchanged contact info with our waiter, and even made promises to become Facebook friends.

Buoyed by our meal and experience, we left Fürreyya Balıkcısı and wandered our way through this magical city, eventually crossing the Galata Bridge on the walk back to our hotel.


Fürreyya Balıkcısı is located at 2 Serdar-ı Ekrem Sokak in Istanbul. It can be reached by phone at (0212) 252 4853.

Borough Market, London, England

A Tale of Two Sandwiches

One of our first destinations in London was Borough Market, a paradise for food and food lovers. We did some shopping and gawking, admiring the sight of the portly pork pies obediently stacked in their glass display case, the smells of London's finest meats, cheeses, and food surrounding us.

We worked up an appetite with our wandering and were drawn to two different sandwich vendors which were serving up expertly prepared, simple fare. The first was the grilled chorizo vendor who was combining five ingredients to perfection. A short length of chorizo had been split open along its axis and grilled before being placed on a slightly grilled crusty bun and drizzled with a splash of high quality olive oil. Roasted piquillo peppers, which were both slightly acidic and sweet, and fresh nutty rocket contrasted with the salty sausage to yield a perfectly balanced sandwich.


The crusty bread and snappy sausage casings gave our jaws a workout with each bite.


Still hungry, we wandered our way through the market until the alluring scent emanating from a second sandwich vendor reeled us in.


We shared the most perfect grilled cheese sandwich imaginable. It consisted of two thin slices of Poilâne sourdough bread, a generous handful of grated cheeses (a mix of Montgomery Cheddar from Cheddar itself and Ogleshield), and several heaping teaspoons of minced leeks, red onion, and garlic. The bread was generously buttered, and pressed in a sandwich press until perfectly golden brown.


The cheese was pungent, salty, and pleasantly slippery while the bread was thin, crusty, buttery, and crisp. Cheese had leaked out around the edges of the bread, forming a delightfully greasy crust where it contacted the hot press. The crispy, fresh vegetables provided just enough contrast in flavour and texture to elevate the sandwich to another plane. Without a doubt, this was the best thing I ate in England. We took it next door and devoured it on the lawn of the Southwark cathedral.

Borough Market is located at 8 Southwark Street in London, England. It is open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Visit their excellent website for directions and more information. The chorizo vendor is located at the front of the Market on Southwark Street, while the grilled cheese vendor is located at the rear of the market, adjacent to the cathedral.

Samphire

Tamar and I are in London, England enjoying ourselves before a family wedding. We visited Borough Market last week and before our trip, were asked by her brother to try and find some fresh samphire to cook up for dinner that night. This English plant is in season now, but is only available for a few weeks every summer. It grows in salty marshes and coastal regions of England, and absorbs that ocean essence to provide a unique marine flavour that lends itself nicely to seafood dishes. Never having heard of it, we found some at the market stall Turnips, for the low low price of £29/kg (or $22 USD/lb). After overcoming the sticker shock, we picked up a few quids worth to eat later that night back at my brother-in-law-to-be's flat.


We also bought some beautiful salmon fillets at a fishmonger. That night, we seasoned the fillets with salt and pepper before roasting them skin side down in a pyrex roasting dish in a few tablespoons of melted butter and three cloves of coarsely chopped garlic until slightly underdone (about 15 minutes in a 350 F oven).

We then added the samphire to the bottom of the dish and tossed it with the juices from the salmon, the melted butter, and garlic. We baked it all together for five more minutes until the salmon was cooked to our liking. We served a fillet per person with a generous tangle of samphire. The samphire had soaked up some of the garlicky butter while releasing it's briny juices into the pan. It retained a lot of its natural saltiness, was ever so slightly bitter, and had a nice toothy bite to it.

Since that night, we've seen samphire on a few menus and ordered it yesterday. It had been blanched and came tossed in a salad with rocket, sauteed garlic, chili flakes, olive oil and was topped with two grilled scallops. The chili flakes added a nice zing, and the slightly crunchy samphire contrasted in texture with the soft scallops nicely.


I've enjoyed my samphire experiences over here, and hope to one day see it on menus and in markets back in North America. Does anyone out there have any other interesting uses for it? If so, please let me know!

La Pasadita, Chicago, IL

One of the good things about graduate school is having the opportunity to travel to new places to present our research. On the downside, since we tend to be on the bottom of the academic totem pole, budget is a primary concern. As such, I found myself bleary eyed on the L from O'Hare to the Chicago Loop, having woken up at 5 AM to catch the most affordable early morning flight out of Pittsburgh to give a talk at a recent conference.

To make the commute longer, construction on a section of the L tracks required me to disembark the train, dragging my luggage onto a bus to complete the trip to my hotel. I was tired and cursing my decision not to take a cab, when a mural visible from my bus window at the intersection of Ashland, Division, and Milwaukee streets reminded me of the presence of La Pasadita, a series of three adjacent Mexican taquerias that I had enjoyed on a previous visit to the city.


Stomach now growling, I continued my way to my downtown hotel, only to be told my room wouldn't be ready for a few more hours. I left my bags at the front desk, and immediately hopped back on the shuttle towards the airport to La Pasadita to get some breakfast. By ten AM, I was the lone customer at the 1132 North Ashland joint. Not holding back, I ordered the super carne asada burrito, figuring that would satisfy my now raging hunger.

The ever-present taqueria tortilla chips were served with my drink, along with their two house salsas: green and black. I enjoyed a few chips while watching the morning shift set up the restaurant for the day, the waitresses and cooks flirting with one another, catching up on last night's gossip. The black salsa was particularly excellent, flavoured prominently with roasted peppers and garlic, searing my lips and tongue.


Before long, my burrito was served, and even though this wasn't my first La Pasadita burrito, I was impressed. The giant tortillas were expertly packed with loads of beef and rice, and perfectly proportioned quantities of lettuce, tomato, sour cream, grated cheese, refried beans, and guacamole. Unlike a lot of lazily packed burritos, these ingredients were evenly distributed such that every bite had a nice ratio of beef to everything else.


Having estimated the size of the impressive burrito to be almost 9 inches in length and 5 in diameter while tipping the scales at close to two pounds, I settled into a slow, comfortable pace, squirting a little of the hot salsa before each bite. Squirt. Bite. Squirt. Bite. I savoured the well-seasoned, nicely seared meat, and the garlicky guacamole. I was full after I had finished the first half, but persevered until my plate was empty.


The assembly proved not only to be flawless in its ingredient distribution, but in terms of structural integrity too. The foil-wrapped bomb didn't tear, didn't crumble, and didn't leak or spill a drop of its precious goodies.

La Pasadita is unique in that once its popularity proved to overwhelm their original location, they opened up a new branch, not in a different part of the city, but first two doors down, and then across the street to better serve their existing clientele. You can choose from one of three storefronts within 50 feet of one another, and regulars all seem to voice their preference. I'm told that during rushes, there are lines into all three locations.

By 11AM, the restaurant had slowly started to fill with a mix of hipsters getting breakfast and labourers eating lunch. I slowly waddled to the register to the pay my $10 tab, including tip. Not bad for enough calories to feed me for the rest of the day.

La Pasadita has three adjacent locations located at 1132, 1140, and 1141 North Ashland Avenue in Chicago, IL. All stores are open from 9AM to 3AM daily. You can check their website for more information and for individual store phone numbers.